Open Writing

One of my greatest joys during those years was writing fan letters to movie stars. I knew, for example, that if I could ever meet Margaret O'Brien, she would be mine. The same might even be true of Joan Leslie, despite the fact that she had to have been a dozen years older. Among the few treasures I still have is a 4x5 photo of Margaret, holding the strings of a cute bonnet beneath her exquisite chin. On it, as "personal" as a photo-copy can be, was the emotionally-charged inscription, "Margaret O'Brien." I didn't show it to anyone, and it remained a secret thing between Margaret and me for years to come. Moreover, I knew in my heart that Margaret didn't send these precious photos to just any old dumb kid who wrote her a stupid letter! No, this photo probably was the only one she sent, and it was mine!

I wrote to Uncle Christ in Belgium, and to a sergeant buddy of his named Wayne Foore, whom I would finally meet nearly fifty years later. Soon after D-Day, Christ, because of his fluency in both German and Hungarian, had been plucked from the Corps of Engineers to serve as an interpreter-guard at an American Army prisoner-of-war camp. I'm
told it had held several thousand German POWs at one time. It was there (ironic only to those who don't understand the insanity of war) that he met a couple of young German soldiers with whom he would remain friends for half a century. Christ was a true country boy, and never once had the urge to visit Europe again after returning from the war. Or anywhere else, for that matter. Mansfield was his home. He was content. But he and those two German buddies continued to correspond frequently over the years, and one of them would actually visit Mansfield perhaps ten years after the end of the war.

I will never forget the gift that the two of them had presented Christ while the German boys were still prisoners. They had seen a picture my Uncle carried of Nellie in front of their tiny home back in Mansfield. One then carved a stunning replica of the house on a fine 9"x 13" wooden board, after which it had been hand-painted by the second prisoner, using the colors my Uncle had described to him. Swiftly sent back home to Mansfield, the carving hung for years in Christ and Nellie's small living room, right next to the two red-tailed hawks, stuffed as if they were about to take flight (and an upside-down pheasant looking as if he was about to crash). I am the proud owner of that very carved "picture" today (see photo), and prize it greatly.

One of my special gifts mailed home by Unc was a German uniform belt, given him by another young German friend. Inscribed thereon, as with all German uniform belt-buckles at the time, was "Gott Mitt Uns" or "God's with US" (emphasis mine). It certainly made a young boy think.

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To read earlier chapters of Ron's autobiography please click on http://www.openwriting.com/archives/over_here/